Iceland With Highest Emissions Per Person

In a survey of the Nordic countries, Iceland came out on top in terms of the amount of CO2 emissions per person, yet was not the country with the most cars per person.Vísir reports that the study, called “Comparative environmental controls of roads and streets in the Nordic countries in 2012”, also showed that about twice the percentage of people in Jönköping, Sweden use spiked tires for driving on ice that use them in Reykjavík, at 60% to 34%, respectively. However, the major story to come from the report is that Icelanders emit more CO2 per capita than any other Nordic peoples. Each Icelander releases 2.4 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, compared to 2.3 in Denmark, 2.1 in Finland and 2.0 in Norway. The report authors do not find Iceland’s data particularly surprising, considering the distance many Icelanders travel, and that Icelanders have about 640 cars per thousand people (second only to Finland, with 650 per 1,000). What was surprising, the authors found, was that a country like Denmark – where the population is more densely distributed and far fewer drive – should have as high an amount of yearly CO2. Denmark, in fact, has the lowest percentage of cars of the Nordic countries, at 389 cars per 1,000 people.